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Comment by bitwize | Hacker News Reader

I always liked the story of how Gabe Newell decided to quit Microsoft and establish Valve.

The story goes that Newell was doing analytics for Microsoft by running software that scanned and reported what people had installed on their PCs -- this was back in the Windows 3.x days when Microsoft sought consent from the user before doing this kind of thing. Microsoft wanted to know how many PCs had Windows running on them. Gabe's market research found that a great many PCs did have Windows -- Windows was the second most installed software on the PCs surveyed.

Number one was Doom.

After that, Gaben started thinking maybe gaming was a better play.

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> "this was back in the Windows 3.x days when Microsoft sought consent from the user before doing this kind of thing"

Since nobody had an Internet connection in those days, it was literally impossible to get the data back to Microsoft without the user's involvement.

If 1993 Microsoft could have collected this data automatically, they certainly would have.

Since nobody had an Internet connection in those days, it was literally impossible to get the data back to Microsoft without the user's involvement.

What makes you think that "nobody" had an internet connection in "those days?" We weren't riding around on the backs of dinosaurs and cooking up bronto-burgers on the weekends.

Winsock came out in June of 1992, right in the middle of the Windows 3.x life cycle.

Well, ok. But if the data point is "X% of users have DOOM installed but not Windows", how does Winsock help you get that data to Microsoft?

I do remember using Winsock on Windows 3.1 to grab Usenet updates on expensive dial-up. The batch Internet :)

Yeah, I'm curious how exactly this data got back to Microsoft. We had a family computer back in the day that definitely ran DOS / Windows 3.1 / Doom, so we in theory would have been one of those data points. But with no internet for another 5-8 years or so, I can say pretty confidently that the number of floppies I sent to Microsoft with data from my computer was a big fat zero.

So how would they have retrieved this data?

I've been reading Steven Sinofsky's extremely detailed blog about those days (it's at https://hardcoresoftware.learningbyshipping.com). He was in charge of Office in the late '90s.

He mentions that Microsoft had a program where they partnered with large enterprises to collect usage data from corporate desktops. But those computers were on a network even if though often not on the Internet yet.

Stats that would show Doom towering over Windows 3.1 must have been collected manually, maybe by sending people a floppy that contained a program to collect the data, and asking them to mail it back in. "Insert floppy, then type A:\SPY.EXE in your DOS prompt" ...

The sounds like a hilarious parody of modern telemetry. But then, the fact the Netflix used to work by mailing you DVDs also sounds silly to modern ears. I don't entirely trust my intuition on what the 90s were capable of.

In the 50's, TV ratings were automatically collected on a 16mm film camera attached to your TV and mailed weekly back to HQ, in exchange for free TV repair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nielsen_ratings#Measuring_rati...

I am guessing a floppy mailed back and forth

Pretty sure that's not what happened. Gabe had a different view of how PCs would become a bigger part of entertainment (this is in the 90's, when watching video on PCs was heresy!), starting with PCs in the living room. He tried to sell management on his vision, but this being the old Microsoft, he lost an internal battle. He proved his entertainment vision in the best way possible -- Building Valve Software by telling great stories, making great games, building an ecosystem, and now branching into hardware.

> making great games

I kinda wish they'd dabble back into this area. The Portal games are some of the most interesting, atmospheric, and well-humoured games I've ever played. And it seems that after Portal 2 they got so hooked into VR that all they've really made is a bunch of VR demos.

But whatever, the Steam Deck seems like it has the potential to really revolutionize a new space in PC gaming, so maybe it's better they stay focused on one thing at a time than half-assedly do a bunch of things like Microsoft or Google.

> (this is in the 90's, when watching video on PCs was heresy!),

Are you sure? After the multimedia PC, and later videoCD's and DivX it wasn't an heresy any more.

I've had a talk about that topic recently (in the context of a computer games, but whatever).

In the 1998 the cost of the DVD setup was quite pricey: about $500-800 (ie ~$1000 in current money). In the next years the price dropped quite significantly ($200 in 2001, $100 in 2002), but your run of the mill PC wasn't suited as a home theatre system (no HDMI yet, duh! Only S-Video on some systems) and most people didn't even had the PC in the house, for many the niche of a home entertainment system was filled by PlayStation 2 which costed only $300 (+$100-150 compared to a DVD player) in 2001 and it was hooked to the TV.

So the idea of actually watching the films on the PC wasn't quite popular... except for the quoted DivX ;-) 3.11 codec. Which came to existence in the 1999 and was used only for... un-official releases. By the 2001 there was tons and tons of films available in DivX, but by that time it was definitely not '90s.

So I would agree with GP - nobody watched videos on PCs in '90.

No, VideoCD and RealMedia doesn't count. It was more a self-inflicted BDSM session than enjoying the video.

I was always fond of TV tuner cards for the PC, sort of inverting the experience. Got my first one in 1999, thinking I'd attend an out-of-town university, and having one less picture tube around would save dorm space. (Ended up commuting to local school, effort was moot).

The appeal from that side wasn't "here's PC video on your 27" big-screen TV", it was "here's a 4-inch video window on your 17" monitor, so you can consume video content while doing other stuff."

> By the 2001 there was tons and tons of films available in DivX, but by that time it was definitely not '90s.

Yeah, well, early 00's were kinda like 90's. And, yes the PS2 was the cheapest DVD player ever. Still, I'd consider DivX the bridge between mid 90's multimedia PC concept and the modern MP4 and later MKV players.

I wonder when MS solitaire became number 1.

Wikipedia says it originally came with Windows 3.0 back in 1990.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Solitaire

Fascinating! Any resource you recommend to learn more about this origin story?

Awesome story - and totally makes sense. Gabe was seeing things way ahead of his time

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